"Why are you playing that?"
It’s a question I’ve heard many times. It’s the kind of question you ask when you can’t understand how or why someone finds a game fun or rewarding. It’s what you ask when you encounter a game that is so far out of your comfort zone that you can’t comprehend why anyone would willingly do this to themselves. Sometimes the game is difficult, sometimes it’s frustrating, or repetitive or utterly pointless.
"Oops! How did this get in here?"
The first time I asked this question was early in my gaming life. I watched my older brother playing Gran Turismo 2 and I was bored out of my skull. I couldn’t understand that to him it was riveting and exciting (he’s a total petrolhead). I also ask this question of my younger brother routinely, usually when he’s stumbled into the trap of playing pointless Facebook games. A typical conversation is something like this:
Matt: “James, why are you playing that?”
James: “Because it’s fun.”
Matt: “You realise we have a shelf full of PS3 games that you haven’t finished? Like GTA V, The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite? Why are you playing this instead?”
James: “Because it appeals to my intellect.” (proceeds to lick lead-based paint).
This is what he plays instead of GTA V.
I’m kidding about the last line. He’s smarter than that, but his only justification for playing a mindless and meaningless game is a blank stare and knee-jerk response. Does he like those Facebook games over our award winning PS3 games? No, almost definitely not. He probably struggles to define why he plays them simply because there barely is a reason.
But enough about my brothers. I get asked the question fairly often because I’m the most progressive gamer in my family. I play weird stuff, difficult stuff, and stuff the others can’t imagine being fun.
Like Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls. I love those games, I get invested in those games. I start to play them, then learn them and eventually mind-meld with them. But to an outside observer all I appear to be doing is dying over and over again, repeating the same section each time. Losing an hour’s progress and just starting it again usually gets me a slack-jawed expression of puzzlement. I go through the same thing playing the ARMA III DayZ mod, often spending hours gathering resources before a trek north, only to meet a sad death in a chicken coop.
This is what I see when I close my eyes.
Them: “How are you still playing this?”
Me: “It’s fun.”
And there it is. The same excuse I berate my brother for using applies equally to me, but lately I’ve been wondering why it’s fun. My main justification is that there is a reward, sometimes even a tangible one. In Dark/Demon’s Souls I was playing to finish it. I wanted to best the bosses and finish the story. To do that I needed progression, to progress I needed victory, for victory I needed practice, and my price for practice was blood. Gosh, I am getting poetic. I should really stop eating curry after seven. Anyway, this excuse worked for the Souls games. You win, you advance. But does it work in DayZ? No. DayZ is not a game you play until you win, it’s a game you play until you lose. It’s like Tetris, only
less Russia, um, less addictive, wait, it has fewer Nintendo characters. Yeah.
Anyway, you can’t really "win" DayZ. It’s a survival game, so every second you stay alive is another small victory. Other survival games like Rust or Starbound have construction, so you can at least build a castle and be proud of it. But DayZ is really a game where the small victories count. So why play it? Because victory is sweet. You crush opposition, overcome the odds and usually get some good loot. But, what if you don’t?
This was going to be a much more positive article until the events of 3 March, 2014 on the ZA5 server. I had a sniper rifle and I was moving in on an NPC bandit patrol (I’ve never killed another player). The NPC missions always offer good loot and I was low on food. But I had time and plenty of ammo. I spent an hour setting up, fretting over my position, line of sight, elevation and distance. I had silenced ammo and a clear line of sight and the bandits had no cover. They also didn’t have a chance. It was over in ten minutes. They had no idea where the shots were coming from, and their poor AI subroutines could barely comprehend the ass-whupping they got. In no time they were all down. I moved in to loot and discovered the horrible truth. Their gear was terrible. Utterly awful. If I was a fresh spawn, I’d take it. But their weapons and ammo were weak and inadequate. They barely carried food, and all I walked away with was about five tins of spaghetti and two soda cans. I’d devoted three hours in total to taking down a group of NPCs with the same gear as fresh spawns. I basically massacred a bunch of noobs and walked away with nothing to show for it and 90 rounds of ammo the poorer. You could say I was disappointed.
So. Why do I play this?
It was the first time I asked myself the question. Why am I doing this? Where’s the benefit? How is my game better? What was the point? Was that even fun? I am still upset as I type this! It got me thinking about why we really play games, and to answer that I’d like to embed a Youtube video from a show called Game Theory.
Did you watch it? I just did. Again. It raises a lot of good points, but what I want to touch on is a point they raised. One of the reasons we play games is to get a sense of competency, a feeling that we can achieve something. I often pursue this goal because I utterly suck at online multiplayer, and I’m usually happy not being the worst player in a lobby. So on that fateful night when I burned through three hours and 90 rounds, I didn’t find any loot. There were no vehicles or medicine, guns or backpacks. Instead I found something else. Something that I actually brought with me: competence. I realised in hindsight that I could plan an assault, I could take on my enemies and I could wipe them out. For one of the first times in my gaming life I felt like I was good at an online video game, and that is why I play this. And that'll do.
And Taqyon? Sorry I couldn't get you that DMR. Next time buddy, next time...
If you follow Matt on Twitter (here!), he'll save you a DMR the next time he finds one.